


fusion

by Skyuni123



Series: pacific rim uprising was pretty gay y'all [4]
Category: Pacific Rim (Movies)
Genre: Drift Bond, Drift Compatibility, F/F, First Kiss, Memories
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-30
Updated: 2019-04-30
Packaged: 2020-02-10 07:36:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,715
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18655897
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skyuni123/pseuds/Skyuni123
Summary: testing a black market drifting device? what could go wrong?(nothing, apparently.)





	fusion

Saving the world doesn’t even seem to  _ impress _ Vik. She just nods as Amara returns to their pod in the Shatterdome, while the other recruits, all shades of battered and bruised, crowd around her, pat her on the back, and cheer.

 

The praise is nice.

The warmth even more so.

 

Despite the whole ‘averting the apocalypse’ thing, it feels like it might be a while until she gets back in a Jaeger.

 

She shooes everyone away, using all her injuries as an excuse, and limps a bit over to her bed. 

 

Vik just nods at her, again, and raises her bottle of booze to her lips, not even bothering to say hello. 

 

But that’s fine, really. Amara had felt the tension when they’d first met, almost relished in it once they’d Drifted together, and she knows what to do.

Amara doesn’t chase girls.

Never has, never will.  

 

Vik might be cocky, and clever, and very, very pretty, but she’ll be the one chasing her. 

Amara will make sure of that. 

  
  


She cuts her hair back while she’s recovering, finds it’s easier to manage and repair Jaegers without it hanging all around her face. It might be  _ slightly  _ because of Vik, but pixie cuts are easier to manage. 

Seriously. 

While the Kaiju have been repelled, for now, they’ve been given the money by a bunch of very grateful world governments to repair the Jaegers, and restart their training programs. It’s all very good.

And Amara won’t need to go back on the streets. She’s thankful, at least, for that. 

While they’re not allowed to  _ pilot  _ the Jaegers - something bureaucratic, and political, and dumb is stopping them - they’re certainly allowed to fix them up. 

 

She’s jammed under one of  _ Bracer Phoenix’s  _ calf panels, welding couplings together, when someone taps her on her knee.

 

Amara jumps, swears heavily, and just stops herself hitting her head on the panel above her. “What?” She yells, not exactly pleased.

 

“Do you know that the panel above you is about to burst into flame?” Vik says, in a tone that is not unduly concerned.

 

“Yes.” Amara replies, which is a lie. She taps the panel above her head, and yes, it’s incredibly hot. Fantastic. “Vik, honey?” She says, sweetly, like butter wouldn’t melt. 

 

“What?” Vik replies, voice still muffled. She seems further away, somehow, and doesn’t strike out at the term of endearment, which is a good sign. 

 

“Do you mind hosing me down with a fire extinguisher before I perish inside the casing of  _ your  _ Jaeger?”

 

There’s no reply. Amara wriggles, trying to undo her mask and her tools from the body of the machine so she can slide back out into the fresh air. 

 

She wriggles again.

 

She’s stuck.

_ Shit. _

 

“VIK.” She yells, and the only reply she gets is the interior of the Jaeger’s casing suddenly filling up with pungent fire extinguisher foam.

 

Just.

Great. 

 

“Problem?” Vik asks, even more sweetly, once Amara manages to free herself and stumbles back out into the fresh air of the hanger.

 

“I hate you.” Amara coughs, and spits some fire extinguisher foam onto the floor. It’s not toxic, but it’s the principle of the thing. 

 

“You don’t.” Vik replies, and she’s right.

  
  


Amara doesn’t find sleep an easy thing to get any more. It was bad, sure, when she was fending for herself - she always used to feel the shrieking footsteps of the PPDC defense Jaegers rocking her from her sleep each night, but this is worse.

Now she sees Kaiju, and that’s just… worse. 

She wakes, at 2am, restless and twitchy, with a burn in her throat and the feel of the Drift under her skin. She wants to be  _ out,  _ to be somewhere that isn’t here, to feel connected with someone else again. She wants to be in a Jaeger, but knows that she can’t.

Sleep won’t come, so she puts on some sneakers, and creeps out of the dorm. 

 

The Shatterdome is constantly loud, even in the dead of night, but outside is quiet. She has a place, a little hidey-hole underneath one of the balconies, where she can fiddle with tech, dangle her legs out above the water, and just  _ be. _

She slinks past the edge of the dome, jumps a fence and squirrels her way into the hideout, completely by feel…

...and nearly jumps out of her skin when a voice floats (though that’s not quite the right way to describe it) out of the darkness. “Do you come here often?”

 

Amara swears, loudly and prolongedly, and nearly falls off the edge of the Shatterdome. 

 

Vik, once she emerges out of the shadows at the edge of the hideout, just looks amused. “You have quite a mouth on you, Smalley.”

 

“Yeah, yeah, cut that out.” Amara replies. She won’t have it. She might be the youngest (and shortest) of the trainees at the Shatterdome, but if she’s going to meet her end it won’t be by falling 200 feet into the water because of a _ crush.  _ “Try not to kill me next time we meet?”

 

“I make no promises.” Vik says, and settles next to her.

 

Well. This night has turned out… unexpected. “You’re talking to me?” 

 

“Contrary to the beliefs of our leaders, Amara,” Vik leans back and dangles her legs over the edge, pressing right up against Amara’s side. “I don’t hate you. You have… spirit.” 

 

“Good to know that I’m spirited.” Amara bitches, just a little, and throws her legs out over the edge of the dome with a sigh. Their feet brush together. “I mean, if I have that, what else do I need?”

 

“The Drift is calling to you then?” Vik says, eying her with a practised gaze. “You want to Drift? To feel another mind connect to yours?”

 

“How’d you know?” Amara cowes, just a little, under Vik’s eyes. Her look is too much. It’s poignant. A little bit too prescient. 

 

“Why do you think I am not asleep?” Vik just replies, mysteriously. “We call it слива́ться. Joining. When many become one. It is not uncommon.” 

 

“Yeah, well, I miss the Drift.” Amara talks, because really, there’s nothing else to do. “I mean, I nearly  _ died  _ last time I piloted a Jaeger, but aside from the nearly dying thing it was the coolest thing I’ve ever done! And we managed to survive, and I felt like Jake got me and I just-”

 

Vik pulls something from her jumpsuit. A pair of circular disks, joined by tangled twists of wire. “Do you want to Drift again? With me?”

 

Amara looks her up and down and just- breathes a little. “Yes.” 

  
  


It’s a black market invention. Not quite as complex or sophisticated as something designed by the PPDC, but something familiar, able to mimic the feeling of the Drift without all of the unnecessary baggage. A pleasure tool. Nothing more. 

They push back from the water, lean back against the dome. 

 

Vik presses one of the disks to her head, then reaches out and does the same to Amara, without even asking. “It feels weird, sometimes.” She says, “Not quite like piloting. Too close. Don’t freak on me, okay?” She reaches out a hand to Amara.

 

“Okay.” Amara whispers, suddenly a tiny bit nervous, and reaches back.

  
  
  


_ Breakfast in Scrapper, watching the water in her bottle ripple as a PPDC Jaeger stomps by outside and- _

 

_ A cockroach crawls up the edge of her plate and she squishes it with her hand and wipes it on her sleeve and she’s - _

 

_ \- eleven years old watching Leatherback crush Cherno Alpha into the water in one of the last battles of the first kaiju war. She bites her tongue but doesn’t cry she mustn’t cry and she’s- _

 

_ -falling off a pier in Santa Monica, and coughing and coughing and trembling and ducking under the water as a kaiju slams its foot down near her head- _

 

_ -and it’s so lonely living with her grandparents but it doesn’t matter and it shouldn’t matter and she’s going to get out of there soon anyway she knows she can be what her parents once were, she knows she can live up to their battle, she knows it, gasping- _

 

_ -”What the fuck are you doing here, shrimp?” The older boy sneers, and fists his hand in her shirt, pulling her closer to him, “Who gave you the fucking right?” She stamps him on the foot and knees him in the groin, because she’s always known how to fight, always had to know and all she needs is some power cells to save her- _

 

_ -and he throws a fist into her nose, and wipes her blood into her blonde, blonde hair, and she wants to give up but she- _

 

_ -she looks in the mirror and wipes the blood from her hairline, brown hair frayed in knots along her back knowing that- _

 

_ -she’s the hard one in the group of trainees, the one who doesn’t break down, doesn’t feel scared. She pummels the punching bag until it falls and she- _

 

_ -peels the wrapper off a cupcake she stole from a dumpster and thinks, “Eighteen,” but doesn’t know why that matters anymore - _

 

_ -and she’s locking eyes with a scrappy young recruit who’s done so much and too much and she’s  _ jealous  _ because of course she’s jealous cause the girl’s better than her already and she wants to hate her but she’s beautiful but she can’t ever say that and- _

 

_ -Amara gives it back as good as she gets as they spar ‘cause she can’t ever let Vik win. And this has never happened, won’t happen, but they’re fighting in synchronicity, throwing punches and blocking at the same time, never letting one slip past, eyes locked, hearts beating in time -  _

 

_ \- it’s слива́ться _ and  _ it’s fusion and it’s the connections of a machine starting up and it feels tense and hot and real and - _

 

_ \- they’re the same.  _

 

_ \- the same. _

 

_ \- the same. _

 

_ \- and they’re together. _

 

together.

  
  


Amara yanks her headset off, throwing it to the side and meets Vik halfway for a kiss. It is cold and rough near the edge of the dome, but it’s just what they need against the heat in their blood.

 

It’s a plural now. It’ll always be a plural. _They'll_ always be a plural.   


 

Amara doesn’t know how she ever went without. 

**Author's Note:**

> throw me some prompts on the [ tumblr ](http://eph-em-era.tumblr.com)


End file.
